We are back with another commentary track, this time for the first episode of season three. This week was also a LOT.  Christenings,  shipwrecks, visiting verity's and teenage pining. It all got to be a bit too much for us poor fangirls. This podcast is best listened to concurrently with the episode.

Poldark (2015) Commentary Track 3x02

We are back with another commentary track, this time for the third episode of season three. This episode featured a classic Ross Poldark adventure in "France?" and meanwhile the women were relegated to growing babies and sitting around and waiting.  Feminism huh.

Poldark (2015) Commentary Track 3x03

This week we're talking about the Swiss artist HR Giger. Giger is most well-known for his artwork that became the basis for the xenomorphs in the "Alien" franchise. He also created album art for various bands, had significant success as an exhibiting artist, and published an art book, "Necronomicon", that made a big impact in the worlds of art and Hollywood.

Giger is known for his mixtures of the body and technology. His work often blurs the line between humans and machines, as well as often incorporating designs inspired by insects, mollusks, genitals, and other less-than-wholesome items.

NOTES / DON'T @ US:
- We incorrectly said he was German, but corrected ourselves about halfway in, so it's a draw.
- Debbie Harry was in the original version of "Hairspray", not the remake.
- We found clips of Jello Biafra, Tipper Gore, and others debating obscenity from a couple of episodes of Oprah, but not the clip Aaron mentioned where the comparison is made between dirty words, depictions of violence, and the crucifix imagery in churches. We're sure it's out there, but don't care enough to track it down. It could also very well be Gwar, since they're into that topic too. Ice-T made good points as well.

Like-O-Rama 31 - HR Giger

The Great Metal Debate podcast is back with the debut self-titled album from Catalyst Crime.

Catalyst Crime describe themselves as cinematic symphonic metal; however, I’m not a huge fan of the ‘cinematic’ descriptor, as I’m not clear on what that word is trying to communicate.  Maybe epic metal, orchestral metal, even soundscape metal, but the term cinematic is literally about the visual scope, so it’s a head scratcher for me.

I digress.  Catalyst Crime has assembled an impressive group of musicians for the recording of this album composed of vocalist Zoe Marie Federoff formerly of Insatia, Jonah Weingarten from Pyramaze on keys, drummer Gerit Lamm of Xandria, guitarists  Christopher Zoupa  and Kaelen Sarakinis, as well as bassist Matt Federoff.  The project is produced by Alex Krull of Leaves’ Eyes and the underrated death metal band Atrocity.

The album begins with a lengthy instrumental/orchestral intro track, and which segues into the first proper song “Projection Of My Mind.”  Sandwhiched between a soft intro and outro the band delivers plenty of snappy power metal vibe on this one.  Plenty of color and tempo here giving the listener a real feel for what is to come.

The second track, and first single off the album, is “Condemn Me To Chaos”.  While I would nit-pick with some elements of this song, the melody line is so incredibly strong as to overwhelm any shortcomings that might be present.  Very memorable and ear-wormy, but not in a lame, pop-sensibility way.  You‘ll definitely find yourself singing along to this one!

Catalyst Crime’s brand of symphonic metal is very heavy on keyboards, much more so than the background orchestration, and includes even some key lead breaks of which I am a huge fan.  More of this metal bands, please!  I’m also a fan of Zoe Marie Federoff’s vocals, which I was familiar with from her previous band Insatia.  She has her own unique sound that admittedly may take some listeners a while to acclimate to.  There‘s a touch of dissonant pitch to her voice that is different but strangely compelling.  In addition to an array of clean classical and rock singing styles she employs, Zoe forrays into harsh vocals on a number of songs, at times evincing almost a black metal shriek.

Moving in no real order through the rest of the tracklist, “Congitive Dissonance“ has a spooky, Tim-Burtonesque feel (and okay - I realize here maybe there is something to the cinematic metal tag) as well as a beautiful trade-off between the complementary male and female vocals.  Toward the album end “Not Even Once“ is definitely a winning track with moderate pacing and a bit different sound a vocal delivery.  I could see this one being even better live than on record.

There‘s plenty of good tracks and I‘m definitely not going to do them all justice here.  “Break Even” is a solid, uptempo song featuring an epic chorus and really cool guitar riffs.  As or more aggressive is “Without Anesthesia” - perhaps my favorite track on the entire album.  The chorus presents a cacophony of sounds; it’s kinda sonically cluttered and maybe not even that well-composed, but perhaps the imperfection makes it beautiful to me.  I loved it.

There’s just one real ballad in the mix - “Chasing the Ghost” - which I found enthralling with a beautiful interplay between the guitar and piano.  The song “Twice Upon A Time” is also somewhat ballad-ish, having a slower tempo but also really well developed building of sound and contrast between the instruments.

The debut self-titled album from Catalyst Crime is available from October 22 from Massacre Records in CD Digipak as well as digital formats.

The Great Metal Debate

Album Review - Catalyst Crime

Greetings, sexy vampires!

Sorry this week’s episode is late, but when you hear Erin’s voice...you’ll get it. Erin and Cam discuss vampire taxes, the coolest murderer in Tokyo, and this show’s absolute dearth of hotels -- vampire or otherwise.

Enjoy!

Contact
Twitter -- @pilotpilots
Email -- pilotingthepilots@gmail.com


Pilot: “Good evening! This is Captain speaking -- last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off. Have a nice flight! ...I want to do this all by myself. I love you. Everyday. I LOVE YOU! EVERYDAY!”

Flight 084 Tokyo Vampire Hotel

This week, we're talking about one of our favorite records ever, "De La Soul is Dead"! It was De La Soul's second album, after their first album's single "Me Myself and I" was a huge hit. We talk about the frame stories, the hilarious comedy interludes, the fantastic sampling, and the general amazingness of this big deal album.

NOTES / DON'T @ US:
- We know that diss tracks weren’t invented in 1995 or whatever. For instance, here's an awesome one from 1981 where Kool Moe Dee destroys Busy Bee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86XG7gw4RIA  
- We know we did some broad brush characterization of 80s and 90s rap. There were a ton of MCs who weren't arrogant and a ton of DJs who had creative samples. We were talking about the Top 40 and MTV stuff that we (and the general public) were aware of.
- There’s a whole epic legal story of samples and record companies and catalogs being bought and sold surrounding the lack of De La Soul’s online availability. We kind of gave both sides of the argument in our sloppy way, but, as we said, we don’t know enough of the details to have a good opinion on it. Google it.
- It should be noted that though this is my (Dan's) favorite DLS album, their next one, "Buhloone Mindstate", was probably their strongest. And the one Trugoy and Posdnuos did with French DJs Chokolate and Khalid in 2012, "Plug 1 & Plug 2 Present... First Serve" is their funkiest. "First Serve" is their rap opera of a duo's rise to fame and it freaking bangs. It's slamming.
- The clips are from "Afro Connections at a Hi 5 (In the Eye of the Hoodlum)", "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa", "A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays' ", "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)", "Bitties in the BK Lounge", "Skit 2", and "My Brother's a Basehead", all from "De La Soul is Dead" and with legally complicated copyright attribution. (Again, Google it.) Clips used under Fair Use for criticism purposes. Please buy De La's albums because they rule.

Like-O-Rama 32 - De La Soul Is Dead

This week, we're going back to our salad days when we were idiots. No, wait. We're idiots now. Um...young! Yes, young. We worked at the radio stations at our respective colleges and loved just about every minute of it. In this first section, we talk about college radio in general, what the experience was like as a newbie, and the feeling of seeing that immense music library for the first time like when Dorothy opens the door to Oz. If I had another 10 hours a week, I'd be back on the air in a heartbeat.

NOTES / DON'T @ US:
- We worked at WUVT (Dan), WIUS, and WGMU (Aaron), which are at Virginia Tech, Indiana University, and George Mason University.
- Just about every station can be listened to online these days, and we highly recommend you do so, not only to find cool new music to enjoy, but also to give attention to these unique, unpredictable oases in the bland media desert.
- Search up your local college and community stations and then listen and pledge them some money, because they probably need it! And they most likely play cool stuff that you don't hear on the other dumb stations.

Like-O-Rama 33a - College Radio, Part 1

Flames Fancast - Episode 67

In Episode 67 of the Flames Fancast, we discuss the past three weeks of Flames hockey. We start with the 5-0 decimation of Buffalo, talk about line juggling for the forwards, hit on the emergence of Kylington, discuss Markstrom's fine form, share our thoughts on Valimaki and his Finnish interview (ahem, not the best idea), and go wild with future predictions for our beloved hockey club. This episode we're joined by special gues and long-time Flames fan Rick. He adds his two cents to our usual show. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope you enjoy!

Flames Fancast - Episode 67

In part 2 of the College Radio trilogy, Dan and Aaron go into depth on their time at WUVT (Dan) and WIUS (Aaron) and compare their methodologies. The Jake & Aaron Hella Show was more planned out and crafted, while The Big Waste of Time was more seat-of-the-pants and hectic. Part 3 is up in two weeks, in which we discuss Aaron's next radio show with our friend Chris and give the final paragraph to this thesis-support-conclusion structure that we accidentally fell into. Stupid English major background always subconsciously providing frameworks!

Like-O-Rama 33b - College Radio, Part 2

We’re back!!

“It’s called the ‘reverse Sleeping Beauty.’” – Cam

Finally, a show for Generation X, liberal Karens! Erin and Cam watched the Sex and the City reboot: And Just Like That.  They discuss, best podcast workplace practices, prude sex writers, and catch you up on everything they’ve been watching since they’ve been gone.

Enjoy!

Contact
Twitter -- @pilotpilots
Email -- pilotingthepilots@gmail.com

Flight 088 And Just Like That

The Poldark Fancast is a podcast about the hit BBC show Poldark as well as the series of books it is based on. Each week we discuss the latest episode, hoping to offer you our insight into the wonderful world of Poldark.

Ambivalent television viewers, Erin and Cam, soar the small screen skies for the best, and worst, television pilots.

Podcast dedicated to all things Flames from the perspective of two highly obsessive fans with a bad habit of ranting. We love hearing from you, and fan voice is central to what we do!

Podcast where Brian and Gomthog engage in a lively debate of heavy metal music as well as interviewing artists and talking to fans.  Occasional explicit language.

Dan and Aaron are old friends from high school. Now they're graying dads with real life problems, so they call each other and talk about awesome stuff. You'll probably like that stuff, too.

New tracks tagged #fancast